What if we had the power to change people? What if we could compel them to act humanely? Would we use that power? Should we?In some of my wild fantasies as humane educator, I dream of creating a huge Humane World Empire; I’ve joked with my husband and friends that the motto of this organization would be “compassion through coercion.”
The more we learn about all the suffering and injustice and destruction in the world, the more we want it to stop. Right now. And the more our desire can grow to hurry people up on their own journeys to a more humane lifestyle. It can become so easy to want to give people a little nudge onto the “right path.” To “help” them change their minds through sheer force of one’s own mental will, almost like a no-touch Vulcan mind meld. It’s appealing to wish for that divine touch – one little “doink” on their shoulder, and they see what you see; feel what you feel; believe what you believe. And the world becomes a better place….
There’s something really alluring about wanting to try on that cloak of power over others: you know in your heart that, unlike others, you wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to manipulate others—you know that your convictions are true and pure and for the betterment of the world.
But, Hitler thought his beliefs were for the betterment of the world. Slave owners and colonialists thought that they were doing the “poor savages” a favor by civilizing them and teaching them the value of hard work. Some of our government officials have the strongest of convictions that they are personally doing God’s will in ridding the world of terror and trees and trade restrictions. Though I might have the best of intentions in compelling everyone to act humanely – who could disagree with a world full of humane people? – my own view of right and wrong, good and evil, as manifested in the actions of others, might translate into destruction and violence.
Though the goal may seem good, trying to compel others to live humanely won’t work. One of humanity’s most treasured gifts is our power of choice and free will – to take that away would make us less. Additionally, though it seems like it would be nice to be able to blink my eyes or click my heels and have everyone immediately begin to make humane choices, we can’t create a humane world by forcing people to comply with something they haven’t freely chosen. We have daily evidence that compelled obedience doesn’t work: murder, rape, pollution, discrimination, child abuse, slave labor, drug use, corruption, speeding in a school zone – we have laws in the U.S. that prohibit all of these, yet they are still daily occurrences. If we ask everyone whether these behaviors are wrong, most people will say yes; that hasn’t stopped people from committing these acts anyway. Yet, for every act of violence or evil, there are many of us who have consciously made different choices. And that number is steadily growing.
Creating a humane world can only happen by increasing the number of people who choose to live humanely of their own free will. And that can only happen by our choice as humane educators to compassionately and joyfully inspire and educate others about humane issues, make them aware of the positive choices available…and then let them choose their own paths for themselves.
~ Marsha
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6 comments:
No Compassion Through Coercion, Part 1
Marsha, I stumbled across your blog as a result of adding Technorati tags to one of my blog posts. This post can be found at:
http://freedomfollies.blogspot.com/2009/11/crumbling-citadel-of-freedom.html
I clicked on my tag, "beliefs," and I found your post in the Technorati list that came up. Obviously, you had used the same tag.
As a result of space limitations, I have structured my long response in three parts. The first part is the shortest, because it naturally breaks in this way.
I was intrigued by the phrase, "compassion through coercion," in the title of your post, and so I read further. As your post so nicely illustrates, there is a very strong tendency for those, whose moral values place humane ideals in a preeminent position, to want to exert such coercion, i.e., to give people that "little nudge onto the 'right path.' To 'help' them change their minds through sheer force of one’s own mental will." But, is so often the case, this desire to "nudge" other people becomes unfortunately transformed into partisan, political activism in which noble values become conflated with a divisive "we vs. them" mentality.
And, so often, those with the lofty and noble desire to better the human condition and to stop "all the suffering and injustice and destruction in the world" get caught up in "progressive" group causes. Such partisan, political causes reinforce automatic belief systems that dictate thought, feeling, and behavior. These folks, accordingly, end up accepting the premise that the federal government is the instrument through which to implement their nudging on a grand scale. Lost in this compassionate, coercive shuffle is the recognition that, to advocate such federal intervention into the realm of moral values is not only not permitted by the Constitution, no matter how much our elected legislators wish to stretch and distort the enumerated powers granted to the federal government, but no amount of political posturing and justification can bend the "General Welfare" clause to support "social justice" or "welfare" programs.
Addendum:
Blogger.com botched my URL in the preceding post because of its inability to wrap my long link.
Thus, I suggest going to the link for the blog itself, which is shorter.
http://freedomfollies.blogspot.com/
The post that I referenced is dated November 14, 2009 and is currently the most recent.
No Compassion Through Coercion, Part 2
As one blogger recently asserted, "No two words have taken greater abuse in our country, and it has become a ticket for federal politicians to exceed the limits placed upon them by the very Constitution [in which] these words are found."
http://bungalowbillscw.blogspot.com/
[October Archive, scroll 1/3 down to post beginning with "The General Welfare."]
Now, mind you, I am not advocating the ostensibly, partisan view of the foregoing blog, because I am opposed to "we versus them" partisanship and opt for a more holistic and "humane" politics that synthesizes the wisdom inherent in human beings and that so often gets expressed in fragmented, divisive fashion. Thus, I would encourage educational programs that facilitate our children's integrated use of mental and emotional capabilities and sensitivities, devoid of implicit, and often unrecognized, political agendas. To seek to gain political power as a way of bringing about a change in undesirable social conditions, is to unleash "King Kong," the "Federal Enforcer," whose limbs are the IRS and other coercive, federal agencies. To turn this bureaucratic monster loose to force people to "do the right thing," even if this coercion violates the Constitution and infringes the personal freedom of others, is to support the "compassion through coercion" idea (which you rightly reject) on a massive, federal scale.
The author of the foregoing blog goes on to say:
"The federal government, especially the Democrats, have been successful in redefining welfare over the last 60 years. They have discovered welfare is a vote machine that encourages minorities to stay down on their luck in exchange for a vote. I ask what have the Democrats really done for blacks in this country other than encourage them not to lift themselves out of their tragic conditions that welfare created. Do you really believe this is what our proud founding fathers believed the general welfare of the people should be—crumbling housing projects in bad neighborhoods with bad schools incapable of lifting most out of the conditions they face? There’s no welfare in that.
"I had to endure Senator Claire McCaskill tell a group at a town hall meeting in September, that she believed the general welfare clause gave her the right to provide welfare to the people. She’s another politician obviously brainwashed by the Democratic party over the last 60 years with no real knowledge of what the founding fathers meant by general welfare.
"General welfare doesn’t mean make the people dependent on a government. That creates oppression....If the idea of the Constitution is to limit government and keep the government from being intrusive into a citizen’s life, which is one of the earliest facts you learn about the Constitution, how to [sic, "do"] politicians like McCaskill with any honestly believe the general welfare clause provides enough elasticity to rob freedom of the people by providing federal babysitting services.
"You can’t simply have a government program for every pain Americans face from healthcare costs to food safety without giving the federal government power beyond the limits placed in the Constitution. Our founding fathers were smart enough to look across the pond and realize with power comes corruption and oppression."
I think that we need to listen when individuals speak out, especially when they passionately take positions opposite to our own passions. I don't support the use of ad hominems to attack the opposing side, but I think that we need to work toward educating children to assess situations with their whole minds and not with fragments of them created by the inculcated belief systems of their parents, teachers, or religious leaders. Education must be politically neutral or it is not education, only brainwashing. A respect for reasoning and intuitive sensitivity must predominate in any process of nurturing young people. Otherwise, they will never be able truly to think for themselves in a critical and sensitive manner.
No Compassion Through Coercion, Part 3
What gets lost in the "General Welfare" discussion is the obvious conclusion that the Founding Fathers would not have gone to the bother of enumerating the 17 limited, delegated and discrete powers of the Congress, leaving all the rest to the States and the people, if they, in fact, intended to give the Congress carte blanche power to pass whatever laws it deemed fit to minister to the "general welfare" of the people.
In the following video Judge Andrew Napolitano comments on these specific, enumerated powers delegated to Congress. In summing up his commentary, he asks: "Is freedom a reality or a myth? Wasn't the Constitution written to define and to restrain the government?" And, he goes on to say, "We now have a federal government whose only self-acknowledged limitation is whatever it can get away with."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agMiMY3Xzfw
In another video, Judge Napolitano also comments on the question: Is it constitutional for Congress to regulate health care? He says, "When I put that very question to Congressman James Cliburn, who is the #3 ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives...he said to me, 'Most of what we do down here isn't even mentioned in the Constitution, but we do it anyway.' Unfortunately, that is the attitude of so many members of Congress. It is not constitutional. Health care is not mentioned in the constitution. The Congress will claim that, when you go to your doctor to have a pain looked at in your belly or to take medication for your blood pressure, that that's commerce, that that's a commercial transaction...as opposed to the practice of medicine. So, the Congress will say that just as the Commerce Clause was written so that Congress could make sure that goods could get from New Jersey to New York without New York imposing a tariff on those goods, we can regulate health care. It just doesn't fly." [Emphasis added.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9XhrF8nz6Q
As the author of the blog referenced in Part 2 of this commentary wrote:
"Let’s review the general welfare clause: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"First, notice it says PROMOTE. It doesn’t say provide. There is clearly a difference between promote and provide. If politicians in Washington had the keys to the case the Constitution sits in, they would have already gotten the White Out out and reworded it for their convenience....
"...Thomas Jefferson, who had a little to do with the creation of this country once said, a government that is powerful enough to give you everything is also powerful enough to take everything from you. Knowing this very quote alone, should be enough for the McCaskills who work from Capitol Hill knowledge [that] the general welfare clause isn’t permission by the founding fathers to provide every service they can to get people through their lives."
Marsha, you wrote, "Though the goal may seem good, trying to compel others to live humanely won’t work. One of humanity’s most treasured gifts is our power of choice and free will – to take that away would make us less.”
True, indeed, and I would submit that, in supporting big government programs and ignoring the Constitution, advocates for "social justice," are supporting coercion that would force all of us "to live humanely" and thus would take away "One of humanity’s most treasured gifts (which) is our power of choice and free will." And, such advocacy, does, as you so well observe, "make us less" as human beings. Much less.
As you point out, "we can’t create a humane world by forcing people to comply with something they haven’t freely chosen." Or, as you say, alternatively, in the title of your post, "There is No Compassion Through Coercion."
Alan, I appreciate your thoughtful comments. (I apologize that I haven't responded sooner; I've been ill the last few weeks.) There is a lot to digest in what you've said, and I will respond when I get a chance.
Peace,
Marsha
Marsha, I hope that you have recovered from your illness. I only noticed your reply of December 7 today when I checked the referral source on Google for a visit to my blog and found a link back to my comments to your post.
I think that you may be interested in recent posts to my blogs.
http://freedomfollies.blogspot.com/2010/01/we-need-political-artists-in-government.html
http://synocracy.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/synocracy-the-novalia-model-part-i/
http://synocracy.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/synocracy-the-novalia-model-part-ii/
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